Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-04-15
REV. DR.TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE's SUN.
DAY SERMON
Subject: "A Live Church.s

Smyrna was n great city of the ancienis,
bounded on three sides by mountains IL was
the central emporium of the Levantine trade
In that prosperous and brilliant city there
was Christian Church established After it
had existed for a while, it was rocked down
by an earthquake. 1t was rebuilt Then it
was consumed by n confagratiou that swept
over the entire city. That Church went
through fire, and trouble and disaster but
kept on TO great spiritual prosperity. The
fact was that Church bad the grace of God,
an ever active principle Had it been other
wise, all the grandeur of architecture and all
the pomp of surroundings would only have
been the ornament of death-the garlands Of
coffin, the plumeS of a hearse
1t may be profitable TO consider what arc
the elements of a live Church
| remark in The first place, that one char
acteristic of such Church is punrtuality in
meeting its engagements. All ecclesiastical
institutions have financial relations, and they
ought to meet their obligations just us cers
tainly as men meet their obligations at the
bank. When a Church of God isl not as faithful
In its promises as the Bank OF England, it
ceases to be Church of God 1t ought TO be
understood that prayers cannot paint n
Church, and prayers cannot pay the winters
coal bill, and prayers cannot meet the insur>
ance; and that, while prayers can do a
thousand things, there are n Thousand
things that prayers cannot do Prayer
Tor any particular Church will never
reach heaven high unless it goes down
pocket deep. In my Church ut the West,
there was a man of comfortable means who
used to pray for his pastor in such elongated
style that he became a nuisance to the prayer
meeting: asking God, in q prayer that was
almost without ceasing that the pastor might
be blessed in his basket and in his store, while
the fact was he never paid anything If we
pray for the advancement of the Church, and
do not out of our means contribute for its adj
vancement, our prayer is only mockery Let
the Church of God then meet, its obligations
on the outside, and let the members of every
congregation meet the obligations on the in
side, and the Church will be financially pros
porous
Let me say, also, that there must be punctu-
Atty in the attendance on the house of the
Lord. If the service begins at half past ten
In the morning, the regular congregation of
a live church will not come at a quarter TO
eleven. If the service is to begin at half past
seven in the evening, the regular congrega-
ton of live church will not come ct a
quarter to eight In some churches | have
noticed the people are always tardy There
are some people who are always late. They
were born too late, and the probability is they
will die too late. The rustling of dresses up
the aisle, and the slamming of doors, and
the treading Of heavy feet, is poor
inspiration for a minister. 1t requires great
abstraction in pastors mind to proceed with
the preliminary exercises of the Church when
one-half of the audience seated are looking
around to see the other half come in. Such
a difference of attendance upon the house
of God may be a difference of time-pieces:
but the live Church of which / am speaking
ought to go by railroad time, and that is
pretty well understood in all our communities
There IS one hymn that ought to be sung in a
great many Christian families on Sabbath
morning.
early, my God, without delay,
haste to seek Thy face"
Another characteristic of live church is
the fact that all the people participate in the
exercises. A stranger can tell by the way the
first tune starts whether there is any life
there. A church that does not sing is a dead
church. 1t is awful to find cold drizzle of
music coming down from the organ loft
while all the people beneath sit in silence,
w hen tune wanders around, lonely and I'm.
befriended, and is finally lost amid the arches
because the people do not join in it, there is
not much melody made unto the Lord In
Heaven they all sing, though some there
cannot sing half as well as others,
The Methodist Church has sung all around
the world, and gone from conquest to
conquest, among other things because it is a
singing church; and any Christian church or
ganization that with enthusiasm performs this
part of its duty will go on from triumph to
triumph. A church of God that can sing, can
do anything that ought to be done, We 90
forth into this holy war with the Bible in one
hand and hymn book in the other Oh! We
who used to sing the praises of the Lord and
have got out Of the habit take Your harps
down from the willows. | am glad to know
that, as a church, we are making advance
ment in this respect. When came to he Your
pastor we had an excellent choir in the little
chapel, and they sang very sweetly to us Sab
bath by Sabbath; but ever and anon there was
trouble, for you know that the chOirs in the
United States are the Waterloos where the
great battles go ON. One Sunday they will
sing like angels, and the next Sunday they
will be mad, and will not sing at all We re-
solved to settle all the difficulties, and have
one skllltul man at the organ, and one man
10 DO the work of precentor: and now, from
Sabbath to Sabbath, the song comes up like
the voice of mighty thunderings.
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God:
But children of the Heavenly King
Should speak their Joys abroad"
On the way to triumph that never ends, anu
pleasures that never die--sing
Another characteristic of live church is q
hour1shing Sabbath-school. 1t is too late in
the history of the Christian Church to argue
the benefit of such an institution. The Sab
bath-school is not supplement to the Church
1t is its right arm. But you say there are
dead churches that have Sabbath-schools.
Yes, but the Sabbath-schools are dead, too.
1t is dead mother holding in her arms a
dead child But when Superintendent, and
teachers and scholars come on Sabbath after.
moons together, their faces glowing with in
terest and enthusiasm and their songs are
heard all through the exercises, and at the
close they go away feeling that they have
been on the Mount of Observation-Disclosures
IS live school, and it is characteristic of Il
live Church. There is only one thing have
against the Sabhath-schoos of this country,
ana mat Is, they are too respectable. We
gather into our schools the children
Of the refined and the cultured,
and tue educated; but alas for the
great multitude of the children Of the
abandoned aud the lost A few Of them are
gathered into our Sabbath schools, but what
about the 70,Wn destitute children of New
York, and the score of thousands of deS
htute children of Brooklyn around whom
are thrown no benign, and heavenly, and
Christian inilIenceSt 1t is "a tremendous uIes-
ton, what is too become of the destitute chill
dren OF these citieSs We must act on them
VI Luey VIII ACT on lis. we VIII either Chris
tianize them, or they will heathenize us 1t is
question not more for the Christian than
for the philanthropist and the statesmen
Oh! if we conld have all these suffer.
Ing little ones gathered together, what
scene Of hunger and wretcheduess
and rags, and sin, and trouble. and
darknessl Ii we could see those little
feet on the broad road to death, which
through Christian charity ought to Ia
pressing the narrow path of life, il we could
hear those voices in blasphemy, which ought
to be singing the praises of God; if we could
see those little hearts, which at that age ought
not to be soiled with one ulcleau thought he.
coming the sewers for every abomination: if
we could see those suffering little ones, sacri-
feed on the altar of every iniquitous
passion and baptized with fire from tho